


Fission of a Different Kind

by So_Ill_Continue



Series: Shadow in the Breaking [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Gen Work, Kuron (Voltron) Lives, Kuron (Voltron)-centric, Kuron is Shiro (Voltron)'s Clone, Mentions of Suicide, Platonic Relationships, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26053729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/So_Ill_Continue/pseuds/So_Ill_Continue
Summary: My take on the Kuron storyline.1. Something is ticking inside of Shiro's mind."Tick tick tick.Something is ticking inside of Shiro's mind, keeping him focused, in line. Keeping every gesture, step, comment, order in perfect harmony. Obtain the Black Lion. Reclaim the Black Lion. Tick tick tick."
Relationships: Allura & Coran & Hunk & Keith & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro, Allura & Hunk & Keith & Kuron & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro, Kuron & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: Shadow in the Breaking [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891309
Comments: 14
Kudos: 26





	1. Replication

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** This work contains mentions of planned suicide. Please consider your mental health before continuing.  
> 

Tick tick tick.

Something is ticking inside of his mind, keeping him focused, in line. Keeping every gesture, step, comment, order in perfect harmony. Obtain the Black Lion. Reclaim the Black Lion. Tick tick tick.

It started slowly. Shiro would be sitting at breakfast or reading an intelligence report or sparring with the Gladiator and the ticking would begin. He would blink and wake up and things would be different. He’d have finished the report or his goo or the entire training in barely an instant. But he’d lost time before, had had trouble remembering since waking up in that escape pod. Was it alarming? Sure. But it wasn’t anything new; just another quirk of his broken brain. He’d deal with it, same as he’d always done. Alone.

It was hard to tell exactly how much time would pass him by. The paladins tear through conversations with all the patience of a puppy with a new stuffed toy, which is to say, none. So, exactly how many topics had Shiro missed? One? Eight? It’s not like he could ask. And how many rounds had he fought against the Gladiator? How long had he sparred with Keith? Had he sat awake, unable to sleep, for two hours or five?

Shiro didn’t know most of the time, and that made it easy to rationalize away. Surely someone would have noticed if it was much longer than ten minutes, he decided. Clearly, if he couldn’t remember it, he wasn’t all there to begin with. Someone would catch on if he missed any significant block of time. They knew him. Someone would notice.

Then, two weeks after his second escape, he woke up, dressed, blinked, and found himself in the middle of a pile of sleeping paladins, credits to a movie he didn’t watch scrolling unobserved across the room. The Castle lights were dim in a clear imitation of nighttime.

He’d missed the entire day.

That night, as he stared unseeing into his bedroom ceiling, Shiro resolved to tell Allura about the missing time. But then the ticking began, and in the morning, there was nothing to tell her about.

Two days after Keith left, the ticking began once again. This time, it didn’t stop.

Tick tick tick.

He doesn’t lose time anymore. He remembers everything, in fact, with crystal-like clarity. And he puts that memory to good use snapping up every intelligence report, briefing, star chart, Coalition meeting, conversation and battle plan he can get his hands on. Every move his team makes while sparring. Every chat he has with Allura. Every weakness he can sniff out. In a word, everything.

Recover the Black Lion. Be the Black Paladin. Tick tick tick.

Even with Keith gone, there is still a cold emptiness in the corner of Shiro’s mind that used to carry his bond with the Black Lion. It’s frustrating, to have finally removed his competition only for the machine itself to ignore him. But he doesn’t let this new obstacle defeat him.

Instead, he feigns nervousness while the ticking adapts, formulates a plan. Waits patiently through encouraging talks delivered by, in order: Coran, Allura, Lance. Watches until the three young humans and their princess enter the field without him. Then the ticking stokes what it had once repressed: The desperate desire to protect. The fierce longing to lead. One by one, the emotional switches flip on, ending with an explosion of ferocious pride as the paladins return victorious.

He’s still on the castle bridge when the Black Lion surges inside his head, a roar that only he can hear. It’s thrilling, and a raw joy floods Shiro’s system at the reunion. But then the ticking, subtler now, flips those switches back to nothing, and the emotions die without so much as a sputter. The link dulls, strains, and the Black Lion’s puzzlement thrums in his mind. She’s confused, and she’s scared, and she isn’t sure what is happening to her paladin.

Shiro ignores her. So long as the bond holds, he doesn’t much care what she thinks.

Tick tick tick. Obtain the Black Lion, tick.

Shiro runs to the common hanger, ignoring the Coran’s shouts as he chases after him. Runs past the disembarking paladins. Runs into the Black Lion’s maw and sits in the pilot’s chair and grabs the controls and looks down and sees them. Allura and Coran. The rest of the paladins. They’re fresh from the battle, haggard and panting and staring up at him. Lance is grinning. Hunk is gasping. Pidge is smirking. All so happy. So happy for him.

Kill the paladins. Tick.

The command drops like a stone in his gut, and for the first time, Shiro hesitates. Blinks. He’s regained his place on the team. Is that not his team?

His fingers shake on the controls and the sonic cannon whines below him. Charges.

Kill the paladins. Tick.

Did he not do this all for them? So that he could keep them safe? So that he could lead them to victory?

Tick.

The mouth of the Black Lion begins to open, slowly, as if under immense pressure.

The clicks in his brain accelerate, _ticktickticktick_ , and explode into the crashing of thunder. Shiro cries out, wanting to grip his head but his grasp of the levers only strengthens. His whole body tenses, bunches, and jerks. He feels like he is being torn apart, peeled away like string cheese. He doesn’t understand what is happening.

TICKTICKKILLTHEPALADINSTICK.

He can see the light now from inside his lion’s maw, a blinding blueish silver.

TICK.

Can see their looks of joy shatter into expressions of horror.

TICK.

Watches as they begin to move too late. There’s no place to run.

TICK

Shiro screams like there is fire in his lungs. He doesn’t want to hurt them. Not his friends. Not his family.

_No!_

His hands are part of the machine and ripping them away feels like rending flesh from bone. His body spasms. His head is thrown against the back of his metal seat. The ticking is torn from his mind, his consciousness in its back pocket.

* * *

When Shiro wakes up, he remembers every block of skipped time. Like misplaced puzzle pieces uncovered, they slide easily into place. Watching the old Altean drama. Laughing about former Garrison instructors. Rising from bed to continue collecting data under the cover of night. Snapping at Keith. Sneering at Keith. Overriding Keith’s orders and undermining his plans.

He remembers falling under the ticking’s spell entirely. He remembers what he’d nearly done under its command.

Shiro sits up like a shot, body cold and lungs bursting. Wildly, he looks around. Comes face to face with the only other person in the room, barely more than a shadowy blur settled just beside his bed.

Too close. He’s going to kill them. He’s going to slash their throat and find the others and-

Shiro flinches, trembles, tries to roll away but then there are hands on him and he’s being held down and-

Haggar is smiling, lowering the blade and he can’t move and his arm is on fire and-

Bolted down, hurt, screaming, long glimmering things that hurt hurt hurt and-

“Breathe,” he hears above him and he recognizes the voice as belonging to Allura. It’s enough to wrench him from his spiraling thoughts and he obeys without question, sucking in the deepest breath he can muster. It’s little more than a raspy croak, but he keeps trying, and eventually he’s able to breathe normally once more. He comes back to himself on his stomach, metal wrist pinned between his shoulder blades and human wrist captured somewhere behind his turned head.

“Good,” Allura remarks, although the praise is cool in its neutrality. “Now, we have disabled your right arm. Subduing you is an effortless task, as you can see.” To prove her point, the princess edges his prosthetic further up his spine, and Shiro clenches his jaw against the searing pain that erupts where metal meets flesh. “When I release you, you will make no further attempts to flee. Are we understood?”

Shiro nods against the bedsheets, reluctant to unlock his jaw for fear of what might slip out. A moment of consideration passes, and Shiro can feel Allura appraising his sincerity. He must pass, as soon he feels the weight pinning him disappear.

No longer held in such an awkward position, the metal arm slides a little, but that’s the extent of its movement. Shiro tilts his torso slightly so that it slips off his back and onto the bed beside him, just to soothe the vicious ache in his bicep. But he stops short of pushing up, fearful of how such a movement could be interpreted.

“I’m going to readjust so that I can face you,” he tells her, voice scratchy but calm. “Is that alright?”

“Go ahead,” Allura allows, in the same coolly professional tone she is sometimes forced to wield in tense diplomatic situations. It hurts to hear it directed at him, but he can’t say it’s not warranted.

Shiro does so, lifting himself up and around so that he’s sitting again, this time cross-legged. His right shoulder sags uncomfortably, whatever balancing mechanisms the arm had had now disabled with the rest of its functions. Allura watches him dispassionately from her seat with all the confidence of a lioness among mice. Clearly, she doesn’t find him threatening in the least. In any other situation, the look would have irritated Shiro, or at the very least ignited some intense competitive feelings. All he can feel is gratitude now.

“Is everyone safe?” is the first thing Shiro asks once properly righted. The last thing he can remember is their scared faces illuminated by the Black Lion’s sonic cannon. Allura being here is a pretty good indication that they all survived, but he has to be sure.

“Yes,” Allura answers, nodding tightly. “Your attack was unsuccessful. We are all unharmed.”

Shiro releases a heavy breath, rigid posture loosening just a hair in relief. But now is no time to relax, not while he’s still a threat. He straightens again. “Something’s wrong with me,” he admits, unwilling to stall for fear that he will lose his nerve a second time. Still, it’s a hard thing to say, and he finds himself unable to resist ducking his head and twisting away. “I thought it was just the PTSD, but clearly it’s more than that. And…and it makes me dangerous.” A pause, as he steels himself to do what needs to be done. “I think you should kill me.”

Shiro isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but he’s still surprised to hear Allura sigh so heavily. It’s the most emotion she’s displayed so far. “I wanted to,” Allura admits, and when Shiro looks at her again her mouth is pressed into an unhappy line. “When I thought-“ she cuts herself off with a shake of the head. “It doesn’t matter. Or, rather, it’s irrelevant, now that we understand.”

Shiro clenches his one working fist in his lap while the other rests flaccidly against his thigh, a zing of nervous energy shooting up his spine. He should object, double down on his request, and not let up until she comprehends just how dangerous he truly is. Instead, he asks, “Understand what, Princess?”

Allura doesn’t answer immediately. Instead she stares at him, jeweled eyes seeming to bore into his own. The gaze is so intense that Shiro stops blinking without a second thought, captured on an instinctual level.

Her lips thin, brows twitch, and Shiro gets the faint impression of pity before her expression smooths. Then her back straightens regally, chin high, as she proclaims, “You are not the real Shiro.”

_Not the real-?_

Shiro’s immediate reaction is incredulity, because what the hell? Of course he’s him. Who else could he be? But the feeling is thin and hollow and it crumbles without applying any pressure at all, leaving only a deep, soulful resonance in its place. He isn’t the real Shiro. It makes sense in a way things haven’t for a long, long time.

And…and…

He’s a clone. He knows it like he knows the Earth is round and the sun is hot, deep, deep inside his bones. He’s a clone and he’s not the real Shiro.

Shiro stares sightlessly into his lap, feeling cold and oddly distant, like he might not be there, in the med bay, talking with Allura at all. “How do you know?” he asks, throat so clogged that it comes out in barely more than a whisper.

From the corner of his eye, Shiro sees Allura shift in her seat. “Pidge discovered some initial inconsistencies in your biology once we had retrieved you from the Black Lion and run some scans,” she explains, now sounding as if she were delivering a mission briefing. “She and Coran were able to locate the rest upon a more thorough inspection, including several controlling elements laced into your arm.”

“Which is why you deactivated it,” Shiro concludes, eyes sliding to the metal palm. One reason, at least.

“It’s a short-term solution, yes,” Allura agrees. “Without it serving as a main-frame of sorts, you will remain free of Galran influence, regardless of any correlative neurological differences you may possess.”

Another long moment passes in silence as Shiro - not Shiro, never Shiro - processes the new information. He’s a clone. A fake. A weapon designed by the Galra to trick and kill the paladins.

God, he’s a monster, isn’t he?

Not-Shiro doesn’t realize he’s shaking until a gentle hand comes to rest on his left shoulder. Reluctantly, he raises his eyes to find Allura’s once more. They’re softer, now. He wishes they weren’t.

“Are you alright?” Allura asks, oh so gently, and it would be so easy to lie. To say he’s fine. That he just needs a moment to think. To close his eyes. To sleep. It’s on the tip of his tongue to do just that, to respond the way he knows Shiro would.

“I’m still dangerous,” is what he says instead, and his voice trembles – mortifyingly, unforgivably - with fear.

Allura shakes her head. “You are not. Both Coran and Pidge have said as much, and I have made my own determination as well. Had I any doubts, I would eliminate you where you sit.”

The delivery is cold and clean and he knows that Allura isn’t lying, but nor is there comfort to find in her words. She’s overconfident is all, and that’s far more terrifying than the words themselves.

But he doesn’t waste his time arguing with her. It’s clear she’s made up her mind. Fine, then. So be it.

Whether he lives or dies isn’t exactly a joint decision anyway.


	2. Growth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2\. Takashi talks, with varied results.  
> 

Takashi is given another room. Or, rather, he is evicted from the previous room where he’d been squatting and given his first room. It’s as bare as it should be, considering he’s no longer stealing Shiro’s stuff.

It’s gloomy, even with the blue glow of Altean lighting. But Takashi supposes it doesn’t really matter, in the end. He won’t be sticking around long anyway.

But there’s some things he needs to do before he leaves. Apologize to the team, primarily. Particularly Keith, who god knows had enough baggage before his best friend started shitting all over him. Well, not his real best friend. A fake. But the damage is just as real.

The knowledge that he’s a clone thrums in his core like a second heart, but that doesn’t make the implications any less confusing. For so long (although really, how old is he? A year? A few months?), he’d been composed of two parts: the Galran programming tick-tick-ticking in his brain and Takashi Shirogane, pilot of the Kerberos mission and former leader of Voltron. But now the ticking was gone (thank god) and so was his claim to Shiro’s personhood. What did that leave, exactly?

A few things, so far. First is the absence of the roiling irritation and contempt he’d felt toward Keith, both of which he could confidently ascribe to the programming. He’d been ordered to reclaim the Black Lion, and he wouldn’t have been able to do so if he loved and believed in Keith the way the real Shiro had. No, Keith had been an obstacle, and so his emotions had been properly customized so that Takashi wouldn’t think twice about forcing him out.

Absolutely horrifying, that.

But that wasn’t all. From what Allura had told him of the Castle footage, he’s barely slept the entire time he’s been here, averaging about six hours for every three nights he secretly went data spelunking. And that was just in the beginning; he’d gotten even less after the programming had fully taken over, then sleeping just three hours a week. But strangely enough, he doesn’t recall ever being tired. Not even Shiro-typical levels of tired (although he certainly faked it more than a few times, calculated just so to avoid suspicion).

So, what does all this mean for him now? In short, Takashi isn’t sure. It could be one of the residual biological differences Allura had mentioned. It could also simply be a feature of the programming, like the irritation. Takashi had spent the last four days in a synthetic coma while the team figured out exactly what to do with their former leader-turned-attempted murderer-turned-test tube stranger, so his not being exhausted isn’t exactly remarkable at the moment. He’ll just have to wait and see.

But all that pales in comparison to the most obvious difference between him and his original, which is that he – Takashi – is a goddamn coward.

Thus, why he is sitting alone in his room, wrapped in blankets like a pathetic “human” burrito, decidedly not apologizing to the team for nearly killing them.

He should, he knows. Feels it the way Shiro would, the responsibility, the need to own up to his mistakes. But he’s not sure he can.

The choice is taken out of Takashi’s hands by a loud knocking on his door. Takashi starts, looking at the offending slab of metal like a frightened doe. He’s honestly surprised he hadn’t heard footsteps announcing someone’s arrival. He must’ve been brooding harder than he realized.

“Shiro?” comes the call from outside, unsure and a little hushed and unmistakably Hunk.

Hunk, gasping, hands clutched in joy. Hunk, screaming, turning away to curl over Pidge in a desperate bid to protect her.

“Shiro?” Hunk calls again, this time a little louder. “Are you in there? Can I come in?”

Takashi doesn’t know. He’s dangerous, he could hurt Hunk. But being able to see one of the paladins, to know, beyond all doubt, that they’re okay? He wants that. Badly.

“Okay,” he responds, scooting further onto the bed until his back meets the wall and tucking his knees up before wrapping his arms around them. It puts a little more space between him and the door, and it makes any attack he could launch easily noticeable, given that he’d have to uncurl and shimmy off the bed first.

The door swooshes open and Hunk steps in, a tray stacked with a half-dozen pouches in his hands. He jumps when he spots Takashi lurking, hooded by blankets, sitting off to the side in the relative darkness.

“Um,” he offers, shuffling a bit on his toes. “How are you doing?”

Takashi stares at him, raised eyebrows hidden in the dim light. “Great,” says the blanket lump. “How’re you?”

Hunk’s lips twitch at that and he relaxes minutely, backing up until he can rest his weight on the desk behind him. Then he shrugs. “Oh, well, it’s been a bit of a week, you know? Had to throw away a batch of cookies yesterday because they ended up smelling like burnt hair.”

Takashi appreciates the attempt at humor, he really does. But it’s hard to find anything funny when he can’t stop seeing Hunk’s terrified face.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, voice low, and it’s pretty clear he’s not talking about the cookies.

Hunk doesn’t let on. “Hey, space is weird,” he offers easily, shrugging again. “Not everything’s gonna turn out the way you want.” He grins, a little shyly, and still just a bit nervous.

Boy, if that isn’t the truth.

“But seriously,” Hunk continues, twisting as he settles the tray down beside him before selecting one of the silvery white pouches. “You just woke up from a four-day nap.” He tosses the item. “There’s no way you’re not hungry.”

Takashi catches the pouch in his left hand, edging his knees forward just enough to make room to inspect it. There’s Altean script on the outside, blocky and curvy and wholly alien, above a little picture of what looks like a green splat.

Food goo. Gross. Takashi’s stomach automatically rebels, virtually tying itself into knots in its fervor. He must stay silent for too long, however, because before he can formulate a properly polite objection Hunk speaks up.

“You do, uh, remember how to open it, right?” he questions hesitantly, now weaving his headband through his fingers. “Pidge said something about memory loss, but I think it was part of, well, part of the, um-“

“The programming,” Takashi supplies, voice a little rough, and nods. “Yeah, although I remember everything now.” He kneads the packet and twists the top of the nozzle off just to prove it.

“Yeah, that,” Hunk confirms, looking relieved. He shifts further onto the desk, fully sitting now, although he looks settled more than relaxed. His headband still winds nervously between his hands.

They sit in silence for a moment, neither knowing what to say next. Takashi sips from his goo pouch just for something to do. Then he says, “I appreciate the food, Hunk, and that you took the time to check in. But you don’t have to stay here if I’m making you uncomfortable.”

Hunk’s body language immediately tightens, and he straightens, like he’s about to object. But instead he just sinks back down again and watches his hands. “I’m not going to lie to you and say that that isn’t true,” he begins, snapping the loop of his headband together like a folded belt. “This whole thing, it freaks me out a bit. That we could be fooled for so long. That it’s even possible, for someone to look and act so much like Shiro and still not be him.” He hunches a bit, hands fisting. “That he’s still out there, somewhere, and he’s probably hurting.”

A pause. Then Hunk uncurls, resting his palms behind him and leaning back until he’s gazing up at the ceiling. “ _But,”_ he continues, stretching out the word with an inflection that’s nearly melodic, “a part of that’s just me, you know? I’m an anxious guy. And well,” he shrugs, an impressive feat considering his position, and begins to swing his feet. “I kind of know what it’s like to have a brain that works against you. That tries to get you to do unreasonable things. It’s not the same, obviously, but…”

“I nearly killed you,” Takashi interrupts, and it’s like the words have burst from his throat. They’re abrupt and heavy and as subtle as a cannonball. But they’re needed too, because he can’t let this stand. Can’t allow Hunk to even entertain the thought that his anxiety is anything close to what Takashi experienced. He nearly _murdered_ them. Hunk would never do that.

Hunk doesn’t move except to tilt his head forward so that he’s facing Takashi again. His eyes are stony, unmovable. Yellow Paladin to the very core. “But you didn’t,” he objects, voice as firm as a mountain. “You fought it off, and I know it hurt you. We could hear you screaming. But you still didn’t do it.”

Takashi curls further in on himself, and the blanket hood falls over his eyes, casting his entire face in shadow. “That’s a pretty low bar,” he retorts, gripping the food pouch with enough strength to force some goo out of the nozzle and onto his hand.

“It’s really not,” Hunk replies easily, not seeming too bothered by Takashi’s bitter response. “People do a lot of things if they’re being hurt, just to make the pain stop. Your screaming-“ Hunk suddenly looks away, shoulders hunching. “I’m not sure I could’ve done it, if I’d been in your shoes.”

Takashi straightens in an instant, shoulders lifting enough for the blanket hood to finally fall away. “You would have,” he protests earnestly, troubled by Hunk’s sudden lack of confidence. “You’re so strong Hunk, so much stronger than you realize. You prove it every day.”

Hunk glances back at him, a shy, embarrassed smile on his lips. “Maybe,” he allows, although he’s clearly pleased with the praise. Then he shakes his head. “But don’t get me off topic. My point is that we don’t blame torture victims for what they are forced to do.” Hunk leans forward, crossing his arms. “Especially when they didn’t actually do the thing in the first place.”

Takashi pauses, hesitant. The argument’s a good one and honestly? It’s one he’d gladly believe, just to lessen the stab of guilt carving him up inside. But it’s got a faulty premise.

After all, he’s a weapon, created and deployed by the Galra. Not a person. And certainly not a victim.

But Hunk’s willingness to forgive him – or at least not hold his actions against him – still feels nice, even if he knows it’s undeserved.

Takashi ducks his head, a flicker of warmth lighting in his chest.

“Thank you,” is all he says.

* * *

Takashi finds Keith in the training room, beating the ever-living shit out of a Gladiator bot. He was always fast, always fierce, but the little time he had spent with the Blades has sharpened it into a tempered, lethal edge. It would be animalistic if his actions weren’t so tightly controlled.

It’s clear that Keith notices him enter. His shoulders tense and his lips peel back into a vicious snarl, although he doesn’t acknowledge him beyond that. Something deep and vulnerable inside Takashi, the part that still looks at Keith and sees his best friend, flinches from the cold treatment. The rest of him remembers the hell he’d put Keith through and churns with revulsion.

Takashi resolves to wait until this match is over, but that plan quickly becomes untenable when Keith starts purposely missing easy openings and chances to deal a finishing blow. Once could be a mistake. By the sixth, Takashi knows better.

It takes a little while longer for Takashi to muster up the courage, but eventually he calls, ever so carefully, “I was wondering if we could talk.”

Keith swings at the Gladiator once more, perhaps a little more violently. His Malmoran blade is caught by the robot’s staff and slides off with a _shhinngg!_ “I’ve got nothing to say,” Keith bites, not taking his eyes off his opponent. He dodges the Gladiator’s next attack, staff sailing harmlessly under his legs. Then: “Allura ordered me to stay away from you.”

Takashi pauses at that, perplexed, before he remembers how unnuanced Keith’s worldview can sometimes be. More likely, Allura persuaded him against seeking Takashi out for some sort of confrontation. After all, she isn’t really his superior anymore, not like she is with the others. And even if she were, Keith’s never been great at following orders he disagrees with.

Keith ducks, then uses the opening to dance behind the Gladiator. But he doesn’t pursue the advantage, instead waiting for the robot to recover and face him once more.

“I didn’t ask her to do that,” Takashi objects, the intrusion on his behalf irritating him more than he’s willing to show. He doesn’t need Allura’s protection and Keith deserves to speak his mind just as much as Takashi deserves to hear it. “And it’s pretty obvious that you’re not alright.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, and Takashi knows it almost immediately. Keith’s eyes go wide before narrowing furiously. Then, with viper-like speed and intensity, his blade snaps forward and plunges into the Gladiator’s chest, scattering it into data points that fizzle before melting away. Then he rounds on Takashi.

“Is that a fucking _joke_?” he snarls, eyes ablaze and fists clenched so tight they’re shaking, including the one still holding his knife. It doesn’t deactivate, instead almost glowing in its extended form. “Since when do you give a _shit_ about me?”

Takashi’s heart cracks in his chest. He takes a step forward. “Keith, I-“

“Stay the fuck away from me!” Keith roars, extending his blade threateningly in his direction. It doesn’t tremble any more. “You might look like him, but that won’t stop me from cutting you down. Don’t test me.”

Takashi stops immediately, his only working hand coming up in a paltry show of surrender. The other remains in its sling against his chest. “I won’t,” Takashi promises, eyes wide and more than a little alarmed. He’s never seen Keith so angry, and with only one arm and no desire to hurt Keith any more, he’s not sure he would win a serious fight. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. For tricking you, and hurting you. I never wanted to do that.”

For a moment, Keith’s eyes shine and he looks away. Then he’s rushing at Takashi so fast that his heart only has a second to seize before he’s being rammed backwards against the wall, Keith’s forearm pinning him down. The knife is in his other hand, raised, but a safe distance away. For now.

“ _Shiro never wanted to hurt me!”_ he screams, so loud and piercing that Takashi’s ears ring. This close, it’s easy to see the tears that have gathered in Keith’s eyes, although they aren’t allow to fall. “That’s _Shiro,_ not _you_!”

Keith’s forearm slides from his chest, but only so that he can bunch his fingers into the fabric and throw Takashi to the side. Already unbalanced by the situation and his dead prosthetic, Takashi is sent crashing to the ground.

Keith stands over him, muscles so visibly taut that Takashi fears he might pounce. “Fuck your apologies!” he rages, lips curled and eyes wild. He leans over Takashi, fists shaking behind him. “You don’t get to be sorry! You don’t get to be _anything_ – not until he’s back!”

Takashi swallows. Raised on a single elbow, Keith makes a terrifying spectacle. “Okay,” he whispers. “I’ll find him. I’ll do it.”

“You better,” he snaps, finally straightening and stepping a pace away. He turns, seemingly in a hasty retreat, before freezing in his tracks. “And if you ever try to hurt any of my friends again,” he growls, voice low and vicious and deeply sincere, “I will put my blade through your fucking throat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed this chapter and wish to see more in this series, please consider leaving a comment. Otherwise, I will see you tomorrow for chapter three.


	3. Segregation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3\. Takashi isolates (until he doesn't).

Eventually, things begin to edge toward a new normal. It’s slow and awkward and tense as all hell whenever Keith is around, but it does gradually get less chaotic. The team continues going on missions, because the universe waits for absolutely no one, but every spare moment they have is devoted to finding the real Shiro.

But they’re six people fighting a ten-thousand-year war on a galactic scale. Spare moments aren’t really in the job description.

They press on regardless, training relentlessly, making allies and defeating enemies, and growing painfully accustomed to the dark, hollow bruises beneath Keith’s eyes. Their only respite is when Lance manages to badger everyone (except for Keith) into the lounge for a mandatory movie night, but even those small islands of peace are few and far in between.

They make it clear that Takashi is welcome in their space, but he curbs himself anyway, despite how full heartedly he wants to join in. There are a couple reasons for that. First, and most importantly, is that when he is with the team, Keith is not. It’s an open secret that Keith avoids Takashi like the plague, and Takashi spends the rare times they do come in contact keenly aware of Keith’s glare burning into his skin or stumbling when Keith shoulder checks him into a wall.

Takashi isn’t willing to push Keith out of his team for a second time, which means he doesn’t get to spend much of his time around any of the others. He stays away from the bridge, finds other opportunities to train, eats at odd hours, and generally tries to stay in his own lane. It’s not particularly hard to do when you’re the only one that can sleep two nights a week and still feel fully rested.

Part of that is for Keith. Another part is for Shiro.

He’s determined to find him. The team deserves to have its leader – the real one – back. Keith deserves to have his best friend. Black deserves her lost paladin. And above all, Shiro not only deserves to be reunited with his family, but also to know exactly what crimes Takashi has committed against him and his team. He deserves to hear Takashi’s apology, although whether or not he’ll accept it remains to be seen.

So Takashi spends his considerable amount of waking moments trying to pinpoint Shiro’s location. He creates a list of sites the team cleared before his entrance caused them to stop. He scours the bridge’s constellation map (remotely from his tablet, just in case Keith wants to be in the bridge). He shifts through every Galran database Pidge can get her hands on. He sends vaguely worded inquiries to trusted allies, ones that ask about Earthlings or reappearing arena fighters – using just enough information to prompt a response without outright saying his name. As far as the universe knows, Shiro isn’t missing, and everyone agrees that it should stay that way.

After all, knowing a Galran clone infiltrated the universe’s greatest hope isn’t exactly great for morale. Better not to insight an interplanetary panic.

It’s not ideal and it certainly complicates Takashi’s search, but Takashi finds ways to deal and press on. Typically, he’s able to use Shiro’s significant politicking skills (honed at the Garrison) to prevent any one party from catching on. And in the odd case that that fails, Takashi claims that he’s searching for a brother of his. A twin. And that always does the trick.

So part of it’s for Keith, and another is for Shiro. The last is for the rest of the team. Because if he’s honest with himself, there are ways he could interact with the other members of Team Voltron without stepping on Keith’s toes. There are places he rarely visits, like Pidge’s workshop in Green’s hanger or the kitchen (outside of mealtimes). There are even times when Takashi knows he’s out searching in the Black Lion and won’t be back for a few hours. He could take these chances to talk with the paladins a bit, one on one. He could join the odd movie night.

But Takashi knows these people, even if it’s a knowledge he stole. They’re kind and loving and protective and if he spends too much time with them, they’ll end up getting attached. And he can’t do that to them, not when finding Shiro is literally the last thing he’ll ever do.

Despite all his efforts, Takashi finds little. The few leads he discovers wither upon follow-up and those that respond to his inquiries are typically of little help and always very confused. Keith solo searches are similarly fruitless. Not that he asks, but the others know what he’s spending his time on and would tell him if any clues arose.

It’s disappointing and frustrating and disheartening for all of them.

Until, one day, it isn’t.

Takashi must have inherited Shiro’s awful luck, because for all the hours he spends searching instead of sleeping, his breakthrough still comes in his dreams.

Takashi is used to having nightmares. Ones that leave him sweating and shaking. Ones that shred his throat raw. Ones that send him running to the bathroom or vomiting on his bedroom floor.

Takashi is used to Shiro’s nightmares.

He is not used to his own.

_He is standing in a clear tube, similar to a cryopod. There are Galra in masks, some druid in style, some covering just the mouth and nose. They stare and Takashi notices the pink fluid bubbling at his feet. At his knees. Waist. Shoulders. Nose, mouth and he cannot breathe and he pounds on the glass and it fills his lungs and-_

_“Operation Kuron stage one successful.”_

He wakes up gasping, coughing, choking on pink liquid that isn’t there. For a wild moment, he is convinced he’s still on the Galran ship, that he’s still a prisoner. But it’s a bed, not a metal slab, that he’s lying on and it’s his own Castle-manufactured clothes he’s wearing, not ratty prisoner’s garb. He slows his breathing and comes back to himself, bit by bit.

Then Takashi’s lunging for his tablet, because that wasn’t just a dream. That was real, that really happened to him. And if his own certainty doesn’t prove it (which, to him at least, it comfortably does), then he knows what will.

It doesn’t take him long to find the report from his tablet. His memory of his time entirely under the programming’s control remains eerily clear, and it was then that he’d read it in the first place. He already remembers it word for word, but he finds it anyway, just to remove all possible doubt.

There it is. In a rebel report delivered a little short of three weeks after his escape, it reads in its entirety, “On hand, on hand - rebel unit 482-IB8-turret-Olkari - rebel command excel-102B – transmission partial – salvaged: Operation Kuron, Kuron – over, over.”

There’s no other identifying information on the report. It’s routine, for such things to be stripped before the meat of the message is passed on to anyone, including Team Voltron.

Before, what he knew of his “escape” was pitifully minimal. He was on a Galran cruiser traveling near an ice planet overrun with crab monsters with two aliens he could kind of describe but not name. If he’d gone to the rebels – the very, very _decentralized_ rebels – with that information and asked where it was, he would’ve gotten all of jack shit.

But this is different. He has a unit code, something precise. And when he receives the full document from the rebels, he’ll have a location and a timeframe too.

He doesn’t know if Shiro’s on that ship now. But wherever Takashi had been made, odds are that Shiro had to have been held there at one point or another, for…source material. Or, at the very worst, they’d had it sent in, but still, a shipment of something so critical would leave some sort of trace. Either way, this ship would be their first real lead on Shiro’s location.

Takashi stares at the report. Reads it again. It’s a little difficult, the way his hand is shaking, but he manages anyway.

A lead. Holy fucking Christ, this is an actual fucking _lead._

Needless to say, Takashi doesn’t get any more sleep that night.

* * *

When Takashi marches into the kitchen at breakfast the next morning, everyone looks up from their goo to stare. For two weeks, he’s been making himself scarce. Nearly non-existent, honestly. He had apologized to everyone individually and then more or less locked himself in his room, meaning that approximately 90 percent of anyone’s interactions with him from then on happened in a hallway or bathroom. The fact that he is now just striding into a shared space must be a little jarring for them, if their expressions are anything to go by.

Even Keith looks a little surprised before the fury takes over.

Takashi doesn’t dally. Instead, he announces, uncomfortably aware that he’s standing behind Shiro’s empty chair at the head of the table, “I’ve got a lead.” He’s rehearsed this a hundred times in his mind, but somehow it still ends up sounding like a ramble. “It’s nothing huge yet, and it might not take us to Shiro’s present location, but-”

“But if we know where he was, we can probably figure out where he went,” Pidge interrupts, eyes wide behind her glasses. Her voice is breathy, although edged with excitement. “Where he is _now_.”

“What is it?” Lance bursts, sitting up so straight that his back audibly cracks. “What did you find?”

Takashi shuffles a bit. He doesn’t know if it is because he knows he’s a fake or because he’s spent so long without any meaningful interactions, but it’s deeply uncomfortable to be the center of everyone’s attention. Like his every action is being analyzed, every word clung to as tightly as a life raft. It seems incredible that he ever stood before the team like this, delegating tasks and giving orders, utterly confident in his ability to do so.

But he slides his tablet out of his sling anyway, settling it on the table and switching on its projector. Vivid green script pops up immediately, and he swipes his hand over the screen to enlarge it enough for everyone to see.

While the humans read, Allura leans forward from the other end of the table, squinting, and it strikes Takashi belatedly that neither she nor Coran can read English. He rushes to explain. “It’s a report from a rebel base,” he offers, hand repeatedly clenching and relaxing at his side. “I read it before, but I didn’t really think anything of it. Until, well,” he pauses, taking a breath. It goes against every instinct he has to talk about his nightmare-flashback in front of the team, but it’s a vital part of this story. He forcibly stills his hand. “Last night, I had a nightmare. Except it was about _my_ time as a prisoner – not Shiro’s -, and it was really more like a memory than anything made up. In any case, in the dream, I heard someone say Operation Kuron and, well,” he points at the words through the projection, “I’d seen that before. In this report.”

“Am- am I missing something?” Lance asks hesitantly, leaning forward to see past Hunk’s broad form. “That doesn’t exactly seem like a lot of information.”

Takashi opens his mouth, but Keith beats him to it. For the first time since returning to the team, he doesn’t sound angry. “It’s been depersonalized,” he explains, eyes narrowed on the floating words. “The Blade does it too. They remove most of the identifying information, in case it somehow gets leaked.”

“But I should be able to get the complete version from the rebels,” Takashi adds, nodding. He settles back on his heels a bit, thankful for the team’s speedy comprehension. “Then we’ll know the general location of where I came from, and a pretty good idea of when too. With any luck, we should be able to find the exact ship Operation Kuron was based on.”

“Shiro could be on that ship,” Hunk murmurs, hands clenching the edge of the table so tightly that his knuckles start to turn white.

Takashi takes another deep breath. “I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up so early,” he warns, fingers deftly ending the tablet’s projection. It falls away, and everyone’s eyes fall on him again. “They could’ve been holding him on an entirely different ship or planet,” he smiles a bit then, warmly, hopefully. “But even then, there should be some record of where.”

Lance is the first to break the tension. He whoops loudly, pumping a fist before extending his arms to each side and wrapping one around both Hunk and Pidge. Pidge’s stool tips dangerously as she’s pulled into his side, while Hunk seems to more willingly lean over. “All right!” he cheers, grinning brighter than a goddamn sun. “Team Voltron, baby! We’re gonna save Shiro!”

Coran grins back, grabbing Allura’s hand in a firm grip. She smiles at him, eyes shining, while Pidge begins to laugh and Hunk gets up to crush both her and Lance into a double hug so enthusiastic that their feet leave the ground. “Shiro’s coming back!” He bellows, swinging them around.

It’s chaotic enough for Takashi to slip out unnoticed, tablet tucked back into his metal arm’s sling. Or, rather it would have been, were it not for one person.

“Hey!” Keith calls, and Takashi hears the light patter of footsteps trotting after him. He freezes instinctively, although the voice isn’t harsh like it usually is when aimed at him. Still, Takashi remembers Keith’s wrath exceedingly well and it’s a little difficult to stop himself from speeding up. Instead, he forces himself to turn around, face carefully neutral.

Keith makes up the distance quickly, not the least bit out of breath when he comes to rest a few feet from Takashi. The anger of the last few weeks seems to have fled him all at once, and instead he looks as nervous as Takashi feels: shifting his weight and pulling at the hair over his neck with one hand and looking about two feet to the right of Takashi’s face.

The question escapes Takashi without a trace of permission, ringing like a thunder clap in the silence. “Are you alright?”

Takashi expects a similar sort of outburst as the last time he’d made such a comment, so much so that he actually flinches a bit as soon as the words leave his mouth. To his surprise, Keith flinches too.

“I’m okay,” the kid replies, eyes darting even further away. He shuffles a bit more, before folding his arms and leaning back into his usual pose. “I just wanted to say thank you, for getting us this far. For finding what you did.”

Takashi blinks and has to make a conscious effort to keep his jaw from gaping. When he’d entered the kitchen not twenty minutes ago, Keith had looked ready to tackle him. Now he’s…thankful? “You’re welcome,” Takashi answers automatically, before adding, a little lamely, “It’s the least I can do.”

Keith hunches a bit, although his eyes do finally flick up to meet Takashi’s. Then he straightens, broadening his shoulders despite his crossed arms. “You should join us for training, sometime,” he proposes, chin out like he’s announcing a battle plan rather than extending an invitation.

Takashi feels his mouth go slack, but this time it’s too much of a bother to close it. “I’d like that,” he replies softly. Then he smiles. “Thanks.”

Keith smiles back, tight but there and that is miraculous enough for Takashi. He shrugs a shoulder. “Sure,” he offers casually, his lips sharpening into a smirk. “Gets boring beating on gladiator bots all day. It’ll be good to change things up some.”

That should scare Takashi a bit. Should make him remember that he’s down one arm. Should get him to reconsider.

Takashi just nods, grinning like an idiot the second Keith turns away.

He regrets that later, when he’s flipped onto his back and pinned for the fifth, but not final, time.

(No he doesn’t.)


	4. Bifurcation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4\. The team considers names

The first time the topic of his name comes up is four days later. He’s working alongside Pidge and Hunk in Green’s hanger, as he’s routinely done since accepting Keith’s olive branch. He tells himself it’s to take advantage of Pidge’s computer genius to better his search. It is absolutely not because he’d been so lonely in isolation, missing the younger paladins’ company so severely it’d felt like he’d lost a piece of his soul. It’s not. Don’t be ridiculous.

He and Pidge are set up nearly back to back, although that is something of a novelty born of Pidge’s outright refusal to get up and assist Takashi for the seventh time in an hour. Hunk’s table runs perpendicular to them both, and today Lance decided to join them, amusing himself by spinning lazily on the Altean version of a rolly chair. Upside down, because of course he is.

Takashi is entrenched in the complexities of intergalactic time differences, deeply insulted by the existence of temporal relativity and the utter meaninglessness of measures like days, months, and years, when Pidge pops the question.

Takashi barely hears her. This shit is complicated in the same way space is cold, which is to say very, and, more importantly, nearly to the extent that it evades Takashi’s understanding altogether. After all, this stuff was never really one of Shiro’s interests, and it certainly wasn’t why he was chosen for the Kerberos mission. He’d been all too happy leaving all science-related concerns in Matt and Commander Holt’s very capable, very nerdy hands, and in return he’d focused on getting their little tin can to Kerberos and back without blowing them up in atmo or crashing them into an asteroid. He is a pilot, not a scientist, and so now Takashi is too.

Distantly, Takashi thinks it’s possible that he grunted something in response, but he might’ve just kept quiet too. There’s really no way of knowing, not when he’s got rebel command excel-102B operating on the Xonian calendar, rebel unit 482-IB8 working off of the ice planet’s cycle, the Castle linked to the Altean calendar, and the relaying rebel base using what they call an “adjusted Olkarian system.” Not to mention half of these locations are nonlinearly moving ships and all have at least three thousand astronomical units between them. He’s technically never been to Earth, but he still misses it, if only for the goddamn simplicity.

Then he feels something cold ricochet off the base of his skull and slip down the back of his shirt.

Takashi yelps automatically, his right shoulder twitching uselessly as his natural hand flies to his back collar. Unhindered, the thing continues its merry jaunt down his spine before slipping from his shirt hem and landing with a _ping!_

When he turns, hand still protectively covering the nape of his neck, all three cadets are staring at him. Hunk and Pidge have each taken a place atop her work table, while Lance sits – right side up now - behind them in his chair.

“Hello!” Lance greets him, giving a cheeky little wave. With his aim, Takashi has no doubt as to who the culprit is.

“Hi,” Takashi responds, slowly lowering his arm. Then he leans over, scoops up the tiny bolt at his feet, and displays it for the paladins. “I believe someone may have dropped this.”

Pidge just shrugs, rocking back and forth a bit over her pretzeled legs. “You weren’t responding,” she explains, entirely unrepentant.

Takashi’s neutral mask finally cracks, and he can feel his lips twist into something between a smile and a smirk. “Alright,” he replies, leaning back. “What exactly did you say?”

“She asked if you’d thought about a new name,” Hunk supplies, feet swinging.

Takashi’s heart skips a little, and he has to make a conscious effort to keep the fear off his face. Other than using Shiro’s given name in his mind to provide a little distance, it’s not something Takashi has contemplated at all. No one had been around him enough to call him anything until four days ago. Even now, there isn’t really a need to, not when he won’t be sticking around after Shiro returns.

But he can’t exactly say that to the three kids in front of him, can he? Somehow, he doesn’t think his plans to throw himself out an airlock would go over too well.

“Not really,” Takashi answers truthfully, sitting up a little straighter in his chair. “I’ve been focused on other things.” He doesn’t have to specify what.

“Not at all?” Lance asks, eyebrows fleeing to his hairline. “This is like, a pretty big deal, you know. You get to name yourself! Who else gets to do that?”

Pidge frowns a little at that, brows heavy as she turns to look at him. “Uh, transgender people? Foreign exchange students?” she retorts, totally flat, and tilts her head. “Me?”

Lance rolls his eyes, flapping his hands haphazardly. His right nearly nails Pidge in the nose. “Yes, because I was totally honestly asking,” he replies, desert dry. Then he gestures to Takashi. “Can’t we just agree that this is something pretty unique? He’s never even had a name before, not really. This’ll be, like, his first _ever_.”

“That is pretty cool,” Hunk muses easily, head tilted as if envisioning it for himself. Then he looks back to Takashi. “Don’t you think so?”

It’s irrelevant. Takashi isn’t a person, not really. He’s not looking to build himself another identity, to become a different man. It’s not possible, the same way you can’t draw blood from a stone.

“It’s definitely an interesting way of looking at it,” he offers, not answering the question at all. He rolls the bolt between his fingers, just to release a tiny bit of his nervous energy. “Got any suggestions?”

As it turns out, they most certainly do. 

Takashi likes “Bingo” the most.

* * *

The second time the topic of a name comes up is the day after he finally (with Pidge’s significant help) cracks the temporal code and is left with a timeframe, about four days in span and based in the Galran calendar system, for the launch of Operation Kuron.

He’s relaxing in the lounge, doing his best to stare studiously at his tablet while secretly cracking up at the increasingly ridiculous name proposals made by the three youngest paladins.

“Rudolph!” Lance exclaims, once again sitting upside down, although this time he’s on the lounge couch with the rest of them. His legs kick up into the air with his excitement, and his eyes gleam like sunbeams on the ocean.

“Cedric,” Hunk counters. There’s a bowl of what looks like pink popcorn resting on his lap, and he selects one piece to flick across the way at Lance. It ends up about a foot short of Lance’s head, but the boy manages to catch it in his hand instead with ultimately the same result.

“Spock!” Pidge cackles from her nest of pilfered blankets and pillows on the ground. She also catches Hunk’s snack offering, crunching loudly. “Neo! Deckard!”

Oh good. Pidge has started making references only she understands.

Without a doubt, Lance doesn’t get the joke either, but he presses on gamely anyway. “Alejandro. Ernesto. De Juan!”

“How about Ryou?” Keith suggests, and it’s the first time he’s spoken during the whole exchange. Up until now he’s been diligently cleaning his blade, just enjoying the absurdity of his team. Now he looks at Takashi, lips quirked in a way that could be the beginnings of either a smirk or a smile.

The interjection is surprising enough for Takashi to raise his head, abandoning his charade. He scans Keith’s face, suspicious. “Why?”

Keith’s brows skyrocket, and his hands fall into his lap, task forgotten. “You don’t remember?”

Ah. Something from Shiro’s past, then. Takashi tucks his tablet back into his sling, freeing his only working hand to wiggle in a so-so gesture. “Things from before I – he – got the arm are murky, honestly,” he explains, shrugging. “I remember faces, big accomplishments, whatever stood out to Shiro afterward. Why? What’s it from?”

Keith stares at him a moment before seemingly coming to his own conclusions. Nodding, he picks up his blade and cloth once more. “He’s an old friend of Shiro’s,” he supplies, “from back when he lived in Japan. Shiro used to talk about him lots, said his name meant dragon and uh…” he pauses, frowning. “Something else too. Like friend. Partner. Something like that.” Keith shrugs, continuing on. “It’s a good name.”

Huh.

Lance kicks forward until his feet are on the floor, rolling to land on his knees in front of his seat. “Ryou’s cool,” he agrees, nodding. “Dragons, are, like, legendary, too. Literally.”

Hunk munches contemplatively on his snack, tilting his head side to side. Then he nods, smiling. “Yeah, I like it.”

“Beats anything we’ve come up with so far,” Pidge adds, turning to Takashi. She blinks up at him, owlish. “What do you think?”

What does he think?

Takashi thinks that this suddenly sincere conversation hurts. That it’s torturous, to dangle this future in front of him, to sit with the people he loves most in the universe and pretend like he’s becoming someone new. Takashi thinks that it isn’t fair, to get their hopes up like this when he knows how it will end. He thinks its cruel to all of them, although they don’t deserve it like he does.

He thinks it’s terrifying to have these kids so invested in him so quickly.

He thinks it’s probably the best thing he’s ever felt, this unflinching confidence and support from the people he loves more than anything, even if that love is largely borrowed from an alien past.

“Ryou’s good,” he answers, and he can hear how choked he sounds, how it’s clear that his throat has suddenly swelled with emotion.

No one mentions it.

Ryou is, among other things, grateful.


	5. Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryou completes his mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to Brian Smith for his consistent comments. I write because I love doing so, but knowing someone is enjoying my work never fails to brighten my day.

Thirty-six hours ago, Ryou had located the only ship capable of executing a massive endeavor like Operation Kuron. Twenty-four hours ago, they had finalized their plan. Six hours ago, the infiltration mission had begun.

For the last hour and forty-eight minutes, Ryou has been in the med bay. Keith is suspended in the pod to his left, his thigh, knee and ankle knitting themselves back together after being shot full of blaster holes. In the pod to his right stands Hunk, who had taken a nasty blast to his gut. In the middle-

In the middle is Shiro. Pale. Emaciated. Shaved bald. Sores running the length of his back, rear and legs from being restrained to a hard metal table for too long. Muscles atrophied. Skin papery and cracked. Neat lines of stitches crossing his chest, his skull, down the entire side of his left leg. Nails overgrown and splitting.

Most of it is covered by the cryosuit, but the imagine burns at Ryou’s mind nonetheless.

When the team had gotten back, when they’d shoved Keith and Hunk and Pidge and Shiro into the pods and had been adequately reassured that all would survive, Lance had recounted how full of tubes Shiro had been. How they’d nearly not even recognized him under the mess. How he was barely breathing once they’d removed them all.

Ryou sits in front of his predecessor’s pod and thinks about how unfair it is, that he – the fake – looks more like Shiro than Shiro does.

He hears weary footsteps tap against the tile-like floor, tracks them as they make their way to him. Hears Lance huff as he lowers himself to the ground beside him.

“Pidge is down,” he reports tiredly, pretzeling his legs. Ryou’s glad to hear it. She only spent an hour in the pod for her shattered wrist, but even that can wipe a person out. Especially someone as small as Pidge.

“Good,” Ryou replies, eyes still locked on the familiar form before him. “What about Allura?”

“Resting,” Lance confirms. “Stopping Hunk’s bleeding took a lot out of her. Coran’s with her now.”

Ryou nods, expecting to fall back into silence. Lance sounds exhausted, and not even he could possibly be up for chatting right now.

Instead he hears shifting before Lance asks, small and hesitant and just the slightest bit watery, “Hey, Ryou?”

The tone is enough to immediately grab Ryou’s attention. He’s never heard Lance sound like that; not as Shiro and certainly not as himself.

He turns to the younger boy, face pinched in soft concern. “What is it?”

Lance doesn’t look at him. His legs are tucked up against his chest now, and he tightens his arms around them. “I know it’s stupid,” he murmurs to his feet, toes shifting restlessly. “I know it is, but today was really scary and-“ he shoves his face into his knees, although it doesn’t hide the way his shoulders begin to shake “-everyone will be okay, I know that, but-”

“Hey,” Ryou interrupts gently, placing a careful arm around his shoulders and pulling him into his side. He doesn’t think about how he hasn’t comforted any of the paladins so directly since learning what he is, that it only feels like muscle memory because of artificial implants rather than lived experience. Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter, not when Lance is crumbling without anyone else there to catch the pieces.

Lance follows the motion without complaint, leaning into the offered comfort and not appearing to care much about its source either. Bolstered by the reaction, Ryou continues, rubbing light circles into Lance’s back as he does. “Hey, it’s alright. You did so well today, and everyone’s safe now, okay? You rescued Shiro. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Lance turns into him, hands releasing their hold on his shins to curl into Ryou’s shirt, despite how uncomfortable his slung metal arm must feel. A tremor courses through his body and Ryou can hear the exact moment when his breath begins to stutter. “I thought Hunk was going to die,” he admits. His voice is quiet, although that seems to be the product of a throat tight with emotion than anything purposeful. “And then Keith went down, and I really thought- thought, ‘God, this is it.’ After all this time, we’d finally found Shiro, and now we were all gonna die trying to get him home.”

Ryou’s heart clenches so violently that he is forced to physically swallow it back down. From hindsight, it’s easy to label the mission a success and leave it at that. But he can picture this moment, when Lance is faced with three downed friends – two of which are the largest among them – and a long, winding escape route riddled with enemies. The fear he must’ve felt. The helplessness. The despair.

God.

Ryou clutches Lance a little closer, fervently missing the use of his other arm as wetness begins to bleed through the thick fabric of his shirt. “You did it,” he soothes him, reaching his hand up to pet his hair. “You did it, you got everyone home. They’re all going to be okay.”

Lance sucks in a choked breath, but Ryou can feel him nod against his chest. “I know,” he sniffles, breath snagging as he exhales. “And I know what we do is dangerous, that we’re risking our lives. When Shiro disappeared-“ He cuts himself off, another shiver wracking his body. It takes a moment for him to calm down enough to speak, coming out as a murmur when he finally does. “I just don’t want to go through that, ever again.”

Tears burn at the back of Ryou’s own eyes now, but he blinks them away before they can tumble down his cheeks. Lance feels so fragile in his hands, and it’s hard to see him as anything but a kid - one who’s absolutely terrified of losing those he loves.

Ryou isn’t a part of this team, this family. He’s only been on the castle-ship for a few months, and a good portion of that was spent pretending to be Shiro. That isn’t enough time to form the kind of deep bond the others clearly share; Lance hesitating to ask him for comfort is evidence enough of that.

But, well, Lance isn’t hesitating now.

“You won’t have to,” Ryou lies, eyes stinging and throat tight. He bows over Lance’s slim form, nearly shaking himself. “Everyone is going to be okay.”

The next several days are chaotic, even for Team Voltron. They are chased throughout the galaxy by Galran forces, forcing Lance and Pidge to defend the Castle alone while Allura pieces together enough energy and focus to wormhole them away. Hunk is spit out of the pod on Day Two, which helps lessen the burden, although not by much.

Out of options, they are forced to remove Shiro prematurely from his healing sleep on Day Four. Pidge conducts a thorough investigation of his arm and is able to identify and extract the embedded tracking device in quick order. Shiro is returned to the chamber before he can awaken.

Things calm down a bit once they don’t constantly have Empire fleets popping out of nowhere to harass them. Still, with Keith needing to remain in the pod, they are unable to form Voltron, meaning emergency signals go unanswered and pleas for help unaddressed. It weighs on everyone, particularly when it’s clearly a Galran bid to draw them out of hiding while they’re still vulnerable. They’re not responsible for the horrors the Galra choose to inflict, but guilt haunts them anyway.

The team spends a lot of their time resting, recovering from a long stay in the pod or being run ragged across the known universe. Allura sleeps for three days straight after steering the Castle into a magnetically charged gas planet for safe keeping, totally wiped from creating seven wormholes in half as many days. Lance, Hunk and Pidge all collapse for a day as well, with Hunk also sleeping for much of the next.

Ryou does his best to keep busy. He helps Coran with as many tasks around the Castle as he can, cleaning pods and rebooting systems and attending to Kaltenecker in Lance’s stead. He keeps an eye on the paladins while they recover, first ensuring that they do actually sleep and then, after waking on Day Six, that they remember to eat and drink sufficiently.

The little down time he doesn’t devote to training is spent locked in his room, painstakingly writing word for word what he’ll eventually say to Shiro.

Keith totters out of the pod on the morning of Day Seven, kitten weak and severely disoriented. The last thing he recalls is going down in a corridor of the Galran ship, leg so mangled that he passed out from the pain. It takes them a moment to prove that he is safe in the Castle, instead of a captive as he expected, and another to convince him that they’d gotten Shiro out as well.

Keith takes the rest of the day to recuperate, although he does so from a med bay cot, absolutely refusing to budge from Shiro’s proverbial side. And despite knowing that he’d get better rest from the quiet of his room, no one protests.

A week and a day after rescuing Shiro, everyone hovers outside of the man’s cryopod, anxiously counting down the ticks. Keith stands in the center of their little semi-circle, muscles drawn tight enough to snap. The mood is anticipatory, although not just from excitement. They’re scared too, terrified that, despite what the scans say, Shiro won’t be healed when he falls out. Technology can fail, no matter how advanced its creators, and they’ve all learned to never underestimate the deviousness of their enemy.

Ryou doesn’t join the circle of Shiro’s friends and family. Honestly, he shouldn’t be in the room at all, except that he has to know. Has to see that Shiro is truly alive, that all his work hadn’t been for a corpse. So he haunts the doorway leading into the med bay, mouth dry and heart racing and skin shiny with nervous sweat.

Keith doesn’t stumble when he catches Shiro, who, despite having been fully healed by the pod, is still lacking any hint of muscle or fat. Instead, Keith supports Shiro’s full weight easily in both arms, cradling the man to his chest with gentleness that is somehow both feather-soft and fiercely tight.

Shiro grunts a bit when he hits Keith’s chest, brows drawing together. Ryou skirts the edges of the room until he can just see his face over Pidge’s shoulder, resting against Keith’s collarbone. When he finally gets a clear view, Shiro’s expression is pinched in confusion.

“Hey,” Keith murmurs, head ducked low in an imitation of privacy. “Shiro, can you hear me?”

Shiro’s face twitches, mouth parting. Then his eyes flutter open.

The entire room holds their breath, still as death. Ryou doesn’t even dare to blink.

“Keith,” Shiro breathes, an exhausted, twitch of a smile tugging at his chapped lips. “You found me.”

Keith immediately bursts into tears, loud ones that wrench his breath and clog his nose. He doesn’t lose his grip on Shiro, however, just raises him from a cradle into a hug. “Don’t be stupid,” he sobs, pressing his forehead into Shiro’s neck, “We’ll never stop.”

A single thin, shaking arm reaches around Keith, hand coming to rest on the nape of his neck. The other dangles uselessly at his side, anchored down by its prosthetic. Shiro buries his nose into Keith’s crown. When he looks up again to smile at the waiting team, his eyes are shining.

“Thank you,” he rasps, and that seems to be the cue. What follows is the gentlest group hug Ryou has ever seen, full of choked words and watery grins and familial love.

Ryou slips out before he can ruin the effect.


	6. A New Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 6\. A new life begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, the home stretch! Hope you enjoy!

One week later and Ryou still doesn’t know what he should say to Takashi Shirogane. Trying to write it down has been less than successful. His room is littered with crumpled up balls of wordy apologies, of guilty admissions and of incoherent, semi-hysterical ramblings. It’s unbelievable. It’s embarrassing. It’s gotten to the point where he can’t see the floor. He doesn’t even bother to step over them anymore, now just resigned to step-crunching around his room like a goddamn college freshman. What his mother would say, if, you know, he had one.

Part of the problem is that Ryou’s got no frame of reference. After all, he could very well be the first clone to attempt apologizing to its original in the entire universe. So there’s no hallmark card to use as a starting point, no customary phrase like “Get well soon” or “I’ll keep you in my thoughts” to get things rolling. He’s flying blind, and he’s probably mowing down entire forests in the process.

It’s also, unbelievably, the goddamn length that’s giving him grief. The whole situation is complicated as hell, and Ryou feels like he needs to apologize for every part of it: for taking Shiro’s life, for tricking the team, for tearing into Keith, for nearly killing them all. For being the reason they stopped searching. For stealing Shiro’s lion, if only for a brief moment. On and on and on until he’s giving the poor guy a fucking _monologue_ of just how horribly he’s been fucked over. But what to cut? What to leave unexplained? What to not atone for, even in this tiny, meaningless way?

And then, in the quiet nights of his personal writing hell, Ryou starts to think. To wonder. To ask himself really, who are these words for? Are they for Shiro, so that he knows exactly what crimes Ryou has committed against him? So that he has the opportunity to face his assailant, to speak his mind, to detail exactly how much hell he’s suffered? Are they for justice?

Or are they for Ryou, a pity party of his own creation, a lamenting of how _confused_ he’d been when he was moments away from blasting the team from the face of existence? How _lost_ he’d felt when he’d aimed to murder them all? Could it all just be for him, just pages of pretty words to ease his own filthy conscious?

Is it just to face the music, to subject his victim to this laundry list of horrors?

Is it selfish to spare him, to run like a coward from the shadow of what he’s done?

Ryou doesn’t know. Hasn’t, since the first failed draft tumbled to the floor.

It’s not helping matters that Ryou has been studiously avoiding Shiro since the moment he awoke. Already, it’s been a week of slinking through hallways and listening around corners and awkwardly scampering out of rooms. He even fled breakfast yesterday morning when he learned Shiro would be, for the first time, joining them in the kitchen for his meal. It’s not hard, since Shiro can only get around in a wheelchair, one that conveniently hums whenever it’s in use. But the result is a week’s worth of pressure on a meeting – and a conversation - that clearly should have happened by now.

And that pressure. Isn’t. Helping.

Scowling, Ryou presses a clawed hand into the latest sheet to grace his desk before quickly drawing his fingers in. It crinkles upwards, and he spends a semi-satisfying moment simply crushing it in his fist. But before it can join its brethren on the floor behind him, Ryou is interrupted by a knock on his door.

“Lance, buddy,” Ryou bites, trying his best to keep his flustered irritation out of his voice and not quite managing. He forces himself to take a breath before continuing, tone calming slightly as a result. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I really don’t have time to chat right now. Can it wait?”

But instead of Lance’s reply, Ryou hears his door whoosh open, and every bit of calm he’d managed to scrounge up flees like helium from a popped balloon. Honestly, why the fuck even bother with doors if people will just march on in uninvited? Something hot and ugly ignites in his gut, and Ryou feels his eye begin to twitch as he turns around, mouth open and-

It’s Shiro in his doorway, in all his wheelchair-bound glory. He’s still nauseatingly thin and far too weak to manage his own weight, but his eyes are brighter, and there’s just the barest hint of color returning to his features. It’s the result of just a single week of carefully crafted meals, targeted physical therapy, and advanced Altean healing, and the difference between now and the last time Ryou saw Shiro is as startling as it is impressive.

Shiro shifts in his chair, scooting back so that he can sit just a bit straighter, and offers Ryou a congenial smile. “I wanted to introduce myself,” he announces, voice nearly back to its original strength.

Shiro probably wants to say more, but a discarded draft picks that moment to break from the pack, making a mad dash for freedom before settling against Shiro’s left wheel. The rest give an ominous rustle, like snow before an avalanche.

There’s a silence as the two men share a moment of mutual distraction. Ryou distantly wonders if one can actually pass out from embarrassment, or if the dizziness he suddenly feels is the result of absentmindedly writing himself into dehydration.

Shiro recovers first, tearing his eyes away from the Terracotta Army of discarded paper and resettling his gaze on Ryou. “I’m Takashi Shirogane,” he continues, lifting his natural hand. The other remains in his lap, settled on a blanket.

Ryou doesn’t move, heart fluttering somewhere between his molars and Adam’s apple, and stares at Shiro’s hand like it might start shooting lasers from the pinky. Then, with great effort, he manages: “Ryou.” It comes out choked and feeble, like a perverse imitation of Shiro’s initial condition.

Which, you know. Not great.

Ryou pauses, working his throat, before coughing once to hopefully clear it. Then he stands and gestures inside, asking, “Do you want to…uh…?”

Shiro’s lips twitch up, and Ryou only knows it’s the start of a smirk from (stolen) personal experience. Otherwise, he might have mistaken it for a smile. Either way, it’s gone in an instant, replaced by something a bit less biting as he lowers his offered hand. “Is there room?”

Ryou’s cheeks all but burst into flames. “Yeah,” he mutters back, and the word sounds like it comes from a sullen toddler. “Just gotta-“ he starts clearing a patch with his foot, kicking wads under his desk and bed as he does. Eventually, there’s a strip just wide enough for Shiro’s wheelchair to enter.

Shiro does, turning to face him as Ryou settles himself on his bed. The wheelchair hums like always, although for the first time it strikes Ryou as mocking, as if it’s reminding Ryou of all the times he’d used to noise to dodge its rider. “I’ve actually been wondering about that,” he offers, rolling his shoulders a bit. His back must hurt, sitting all day like that. God knows Ryou’s does, and he’d only been hunched over his desk for a few hours today.

Beyond that, Shiro doesn’t have to specify. After all, Ryou has been in his brain, more or less. Although the sentence itself may be foreign, the logic behind it is not. “Keith suggested it,” Ryou supplies, voice finally losing the last of its startled croak. Then he realizes what exactly he’s talking about and struggles not to visibly tense. “But it’s your past,” he concedes immediately, inclining his head perhaps a little too hastily. “If you don’t want me using your friend’s name, I-“

Shiro doesn’t let him finish, instead interrupting him with a laugh that seems to burst from his lips. Ryou freezes again, eyes going wide and hand clenching on his pantleg. There’s a joke in there somewhere, for Shiro to react like that. He just doesn’t see it yet. Unless-

“Ryou wasn’t a friend of yours,” he realizes blandly.

Shiro releases another bout of sniggers, this time ineffectually shielded behind a hand, and shakes his head. “Not exactly,” he confirms, clearly struggling - and failing - to control himself. “My- ah- my dog. A P-Pekingese.”

His dog.

Ryou blinks, not quite sure what to do with that information. He’s named after someone’s pet, a tiny dog that looks like the lovechild of a lion and a duster. He thinks he should probably be insulted, but he’s quickly chuckling too. “What a lying little shit,” he murmurs, shaking his head in disbelief. He sweeps his palm underneath his bangs, unsticking them from his forehead, and laughs again. “He made it sound so genuine.”

Shiro just grins, practically radiating pride. “Yeah, well, at least he was a good dog,” he comforts lightly, shrugging. “A better namesake than most, probably. And,” he adds, eyeing Ryou shrewdly, “it did get you to loosen up a bit. And to stop looking at me like I caught you out past curfew.”

Ryou’s eyes flick toward the ceiling, heat radiating from his cheeks, because yeah, that’s a fair catch. Still, Shiro should be careful; any more of this and the floor could ignite just from the power of his blush. “Yeah, well,” he starts, still avoiding his gaze. “I have a lot I need to say to you.” He licks his lips, eyes falling to the ground. “A lot I need to apologize for.”

Shiro’s no longer smiling when Ryou hazards a glance in his direction. “Because you’re a clone.”

And there it is. The core of everything, out in the open. It’s a good thing he was never able to find the right thing to say, he supposes, since all that preparation is about to go out the window anyway.

Ryou just hunches his shoulders, ignoring the deeply seated instinct to hide the reaction. Honestly, there’s no point in trying. This is Shiro he’s talking to, the originator of all his habits and mannerisms. Hiding, on any level, is not really an option. Plus, after everything that went down, he’s been working on being more honest with the paladins; he doesn’t exactly want to make Shiro – the person he’s hurt the most - the exception to that.

“Because I’m a thief,” Ryou corrects, tone bitter. His hand tightens into a fist on his knee, crunching the fabric of his pantleg just like so many sheets of paper. “Because I used what I stole to hurt the people you care about.”

Shiro takes a deep breath and nods. “Keith told me about that. About what happened with the Black Lion.”

“Not just that,” Ryou objects quickly, although it hurts. Hurts to lay all of this bare, to explain, in excruciating detail, the horrors he’s inflicted. To peel back the layers that make him look human to expose the monster beneath. “I made Keith doubt himself. Told him horrible things. That he wasn’t good enough. That the team would be better without him leading them into danger.” He pauses, a fine tremble shooting through him. “That they’d be better off without him at all.”

Ryou sucks in a shuddering breath, head bowed low enough to avoid seeing Shiro’s face. The words don’t come out in a rush, as some unstoppable flood. He could end this now, just to save himself the heartache and shame. But Shiro deserves to know the truth, and Ryou is the only one that can give it to him. So he continues. “I fed the team bad information. I lied to them, constantly. I tricked my way into the Black Lion and then I nearly used her to kill them. I’m the reason it took so long to get to you; if they hadn’t found me first, they would’ve never stopped looking.” He clamps his eyes shut against the forming tears, hand shaking where it still clutches his pantleg. “I’m so sorry. I know this isn’t anything compared to what I did to you, but-“

“Stop,” Shiro orders, the commanding voice so familiar that for a moment Ryou wonders if he’s said it himself. Distantly, he realizes that’s absurd. Then he registers the ringing in his ears, the way his chest feels like it’s being crushed flat. The way his breaths come fast and gasping and he thinks, _Oh_.

“You need to slow down,” Shiro tells him, calm and even. Ryou peers at him from beneath sweaty bangs, head dizzy. He looks confident, in absolute, unquestionable control. A star in the middle of swirling cosmic chaos. “Breathe with me, nice and slow.” He pauses, eyes searching Ryou’s. “In.” Shiro draws a measured inhale. “And out.” He releases it at the same leisurely pace. Leaning forward a bit, he nods at Ryou. “Now you too. In.”

Ryou obeys, trying to match his inhale, but he can’t, and four gasping pants slip in and out by the time Shiro begins to exhale. But Shiro’s steady guidance acts as a lifeline, and bit by bit, Ryou’s breath begins to return to normal.

Eventually, Ryou comes fully back to himself, tears dribbling down his face and sweat slicking his skin. He feels gross, although not surprised. He’s had panic attacks before, both in his implanted memory and under his own name.

But familiarity doesn’t stop the shame, because this is supposed to be about atonement, not a demonstration of just how broken he really is. “Sorry,” he finally croaks, cheeks flaming for the third time. He swipes a sleeve over his forehead, surreptitiously attending to the tears lower on his face as well.

“Don’t be sorry,” Shiro replies immediately, and his leaderly mask slips to reveal a face pinched in concern. “Do you need some water? That looked like a bad one.”

Ryou just shakes his head, running a brisk hand through his sopping hair. “No, I’m alright,” he lies, fully aware Shiro can see through the dismissal. He barrels on to avoid being called out. “You shouldn’t have to do that for me, after everything that’s happened.”

Shiro frowns, posture straightening from where it had edged forward. “I’m not just going to sit here and watch you lose it.”

Ryou’s jaw clenches, and he hunches over himself, hand fisting in his hair. “I deserve worse.”

“For what, being born?”

Fire ignites in Ryou’s veins, straightening his spine and baring his teeth. “For being _created,”_ he snarls, eyes flashing. “I’m not a person, I wasn’t _born._ I’m a weapon, created by Haggar and sent to kill everyone here.”

Shiro’s eyes soften, mouth parting. His eyebrows pinch. Sympathy. Empathy.

Ryou leaps to his feet, unable to stay seated any longer. His blood is boiling, burning like acid under his skin. Melting his insides. Eating him from the inside out. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he rages, looming over the wheelchair-bound Takashi. “You should be angry! You should be livid! Hagger was going to kill your family with your own fucking face! Doesn’t that bother you? Am I the only one that sees how messed up that is?”

Finally, Shiro’s unflappable composure breaks. “What do you want from me?” he barks, hands fisted, and vindication rushes through Ryou. “To curse and scream and rant? To cry? To bitch about the unfairness of it all?” He snorts, sharp and dark and bitterly broken. “Fucking news flash: life’s unfair! The whole goddamn universe is unfair! I’ve moved _on_.”

The vindication sputters and dies, leaving Ryou with nothing but anger. He balls his fist, faintly aware that his teeth are creaking under the pressure of his jaw. He doesn’t care. He won’t need them much longer. “Don’t you think I know that?” he hisses, muscles so taut that they’re shaking. His hand flies to his chest, jabbing harshly into his heart. “Don’t you think I’ve realized? I was made to kill everyone I love! My whole life is a lie! I’m not even supposed to _exist_.”

There’s no reply from Shiro, no words at all, and the room rings with silence. Ryou glares at the man before him, chest heaving with effort, but Shiro is frozen. Just staring at him, eyes wide, and that’s when Ryou realizes. After months of concealing the ultimate secret, he’s just given away the entire game.

To Shiro.

Ryou’s heart thunders in his chest, blood rushing from his face.

No. No no no no-

He gulps. “That’s not what I-“

“You’re planning on killing yourself,” Shiro breathes, horrified. He looks like he’s been struck dumb, like he’s watching his own death play out before him. He’s never seen the expression before, except-

Matt’s terrified face. Shaking voice. “I’m not going to make it. I’ll never see my family again.”

Ryou shakes his head, backpedaling until he falls onto his bed. “I’m not.”

It’s a pretty obvious lie, even to someone without their shared brain.

Ryou scowls, suddenly more indignant than afraid. “Fine, whatever. So what if I am?” he bites, staring at the wall beside him.

He expects Shiro to say something about the gift of life, how it’s sacred and you only get one. He’s ready for platitudes meant for people.

When he gets instead is: “What about the team?”

Ryou flinches, caught off guard although really, that had been a stupid miscalculation. Shiro knows how shitty life can be, how worthless it can feel. He wouldn’t waste his breath on such idealist nonsense.

He’d go for the gut. He’d use what Ryou couldn’t just shrug away.

“I never wanted them to get attached,” Ryou counters, although it’s weak even to his own ears. He slumps forward and kneads his thumb and forefinger into his closed eyes. He feels exhausted, all of a sudden. He wishes he’d just locked his door.

“It’s too late for that,” Shiro continues mercilessly, although his voice isn’t harsh. Just firm, solid, like a great oak tree. There’s a hum-crunch as he rolls forward through the carpet of trash. “They obviously care about you. Hunk’s worried you aren’t eating enough. Pidge misses you in her lab. Are you really going to do that to them?”

Ryou shudders, breath snagging as he draws it in. He sees their terrified faces from the Black Lion’s cockpit in the darkness of his eyelids. Sees them try to run. “I don’t want to hurt them.”

“I know,” Shiro replies. A hand, thin and frail, lands on his shoulder of his dead prosthetic. Ryou swears he can feel it thrums with strength. “But you’re safe, I promise. I wouldn’t be asking you to stay if I wasn’t certain.”

And that, that invitation to stay, to live, from the person that should hate him the most seems to be the last straw. Tears leak from beneath his fingertips, burning trails down his cheeks, and his last bit of resolve crumbles like drying sand.

Ryou reaches his hand out, blindly searching for Shiro’s shoulder, and grips it tightly once it’s found.

It’s comforting, this equilibrium of steadying and being steadied.

Comforting, but it won’t fix everything. Ryou still hurt these people. Still stole Shiro’s life. _Is_ still stealing Shiro’s face. He’s a weapon, at his core, even if one emptied of bullets. Shiro’s words don’t fix that. Nobody’s can.

But Ryou doesn’t want to hurt the team, ever, ever again. And if he killed himself…they would blame themselves. They would say they missed signs. That they were too cold. That they should’ve known better. It’s something he’d known for a while, even if he’d refused to believe it over and over and over again.

So no, Ryou doesn’t deserve this chance Shiro is offering him. It’s not right, for him to exist. It’s not just. It’s not fair.

But the universe never is, and killing himself will only hurt the very people he want to protect the most.

Really, the choice is simple. If it means keeping the team safe, Ryou will do a lot worse than live.

“Okay,” he agrees, voice clogged and weedy and small. “I’ll stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! If you enjoyed this work, please consider leaving a comment. I love to read what people thought, both positive and negative. Additionally, I'm currently on the fence about continuing this series, so if you'd like to see more, a little encouragement would certainly help make that decision easier. 
> 
> Thank you for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my (very late) response to the whole clone plotline of VLD. I initially didn't take issue with how the cannon story played out, but after reading the absolutely enthralling _Parallel by Proxy_ by VelkynKarma and _Don't Let's Start_ by BossToaster, I realized what a great potential Kuron had and was inspired to write my own adaptation. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this work so far, please consider leaving a comment. Kudos are also appreciated. 
> 
> Chapters will be uploaded daily (or faster, depending on the reception). For now, see you all tomorrow.


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